Janeway's worst decisions?

[F. King Daniel]

Every Star Trek captain makes some bad decisions. What were Janeway's worst?

I say it was stranding her crew in the Delta Quadrant in the first place. I never understood why they couldn't rig the array to blow up using timed devices a few seconds after using it to send them home (or even order someone to stay behind to do the job). Add to that, the Ocampa were screwed anyway when their power would run out in a few years (although I guess she gave them time to prepare).

I guess it was more a case of weak writing, but I thought it made Janeway look bad on her first day on the job.

Honourable mention: Seperating Tuvix. I see why she did it, but she didn't have the right to murder an innocent to save two crewman, IMO.

 

[Anwar]

If she didn't separate him, she'd basically have murdered two crewmen by criminal cowardice.

As for the Array, it was bad writing. Earlier scenes showed that using the Array would've killed people meaning it wasn't an option, but the crew acted like it was perfectly safe. Either it's a safe way home or not, make up your minds writers!

 

[Ensign Johnson]

It would be pretty stupid if Janeway hadn't stranded everyone in the delta quadrant really because she would have ruined the whole concept of the show and Seven of Nine would be stuck with a bald head.

The Tuvix thing was grim but it was a good morality episode, Dollhouse has similar themes with Echo and Whiskey not wanting to "die". Janeway wasn't really wrong in her decision but I'm not sure there was really a right option either.

For me Janeway's worst decision was encouraging Tom Paris with Fair Haven. Why would anyone want to hang out with a bunch of religious simpletons? It did have a pub, but did it have real alcohol?

 

[Mr Silver]

Ordering Chakotay to make the "Borg/Voyager Alliance" work, if he hadn't countermanded her orders, the Borg would have likely used Voyager further and then eventually assimilated the crew

Therefore from that we can deduce if Janeway hadn't been injured, she might have actually been responsible for Voyager's demise, due to her gamble with the Borg, not that it mattered, Chakotay would have probably persuaded her to end the alliance eventually

 

[JanewayRulz!]

1) Going after the Ferengi instead of flying directly into the wormhole in season 3's "False Profits".

2) Spending a month or more holed up in her quarters when the ship entered "the void" in season 5's "Night". Her crew needed her more THEN, than when some alien of the week is harrassing Voyager, she just couldn't see it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I thought of another: Old Janeway's plan in "Endgame". She didn't have the right to alter 25ish years of everyone's life (as in, everyone on Voyager and many on Earth) for the sake of Chakotay, Seven, Tuvok and about 20 others.

Kirk turned out differently when his father was killed. Just how is Miral Paris gonna turn out now she's gone from living her first 20 years with 150 people on the closed environment of Voyager compared to living her whole life on Earth? We are the sum of our experiences. Like Kirk, Miral won't be the same person she was in the original timeline. (another, more radical example is Picard and Shinzon, who lived entirely different lives and turned out entirely differently despite being genetically identical)

In the original timeline, the Federation had working defences against the Borg. Janeway risked that tech falling into Borg hands (and in fact, the Borg adapted to the armour plating shields). That alone should have made it too risky.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

True, in the new movie Kirk became Captain of the Enterprise 7 or 8 years earlier than in the original timeline.

If one wants to make a point about the irresponsibility of changing the timeline, one simply has to point to Deep Space Nine, season 4. The episode after "Way of the Warrior", (currently being done line by line) is "The Visitor". In the "original" DS9 timeline, Jadzia Dax is alive and well into her 70's (?) during middle aged Jake's experiments. In the "new" timeline, as we all know, Jadzia dies just 2 years later.

I don't think we can "count" Admiral Janeway's decision as a "bad" mark against Captain Janeway. These are two very different women, as seen by the Captain's actions when she discovers the transwarp hub at the center of the nebula.

Tell me... speaking of your original thesis re: "Every Star Trek Captain makes bad decisions" ... what do you feel were Picard's or Sisko's "bad" decisions? (I haven't watched Enterprise enough to judge).

 

[JarodRussell]

Stranding her crew in the first episode, and using time travel to bring them back in the last episode. Somehow it went full circle.


Who else was disappointed that the final episode didn't involve another Caretaker?

 

[Ensign Johnson]

True, in the new movie Kirk became Captain of the Enterprise 7 or 8 years earlier than in the original timeline.

If one wants to make a point about the irresponsibility of changing the timeline, one simply has to point to Deep Space Nine, season 4. The episode after "Way of the Warrior", (currently being done line by line) is "The Visitor". In the "original" DS9 timeline, Jadzia Dax is alive and well into her 70's (?) during middle aged Jake's experiments. In the "new" timeline, as we all know, Jadzia dies just 2 years later.

I don't think we can "count" Admiral Janeway's decision as a "bad" mark against Captain Janeway. These are two very different women, as seen by the Captain's actions when she discovers the transwarp hub at the center of the nebula.

Tell me... speaking of your original thesis re: "Every Star Trek Captain makes bad decisions" ... what do you feel were Picard's or Sisko's "bad" decisions? (I haven't watched Enterprise enough to judge).

In DS9's "Children of Time" future Odo stopped a bunch of people (including himself?) from existing to save Kira. Admiral Janeway was doing the same thing to save Seven of Nine and maybe just for the fun of breaking the temporal prime directive. I loved Admiral Janeway.

For me Sisko's worst decision was not listening to the wormhole aliens and getting Jadzia killed. Also it annoyed me that he didn't get in trouble for poisoning the Marquis planet and for assuming they would be fine just swapping planets with the cardies. I did like seeing crazy Sisko I just didn't like that there were no consequences. I never liked Sisko as much as Janeway, he just didn't charm me like she did.

 

[F. King Daniel]

True, in the new movie Kirk became Captain of the Enterprise 7 or 8 years earlier than in the original timeline.

There was a lot more different about him than that.

I don't think we can "count" Admiral Janeway's decision as a "bad" mark against Captain Janeway. These are two very different women

I guess you're right, she's an alternate future version. I withdraw my claim.

Tell me... speaking of your original thesis re: "Every Star Trek Captain makes bad decisions" ... what do you feel were Picard's or Sisko's "bad" decisions? (I haven't watched Enterprise enough to judge).

off the top of ny head...

Picard: Not taking action against the relocation of natives in "Journey's End" (he'd done a mysterious U-turn by "Insurrection")

Sisko: Poisoning a planet and endangering thousands during his petty dispute with Eddington.

Archer (FWIW): Refusing a cure to a world in need, piracy, torture.

There are more, but it's 1:40am. Goodnight!

 

[DonIago]

1) Tuvix
2) Endgame
3) I still get annoyed with her for how she disrespects the Holodoc in YoH Part II. If the CO of a starship can blow off her CMO she really loses any sort of high ground in terms of telling others to comply with said CMO. Then again, that version of Janeway became a moot point.
4) Equinox Pt. II - too bad she couldn't reference Archer in her willingness to engage in extreme measures in order to extract information from hostile personnel.

Note that really, none of the captains are above reproach. One almost wonders whether the captain who commits the occasional morally ambiguous action ends up being better-regarded than a captain who consistently plays it safe (Esteban and Styles come to mind).

 

[T.D. Possum]

It's hard to know how to vote on this one. The necessity to have the show continue each week put Janeway, as a character, into some stupid positions. Tuvix and the Array are fine examples. If Janeway was real, she would have had more options in those situations. As a character, she had to do things that would maintain the pre-established structure of the series. So it's hard to blame her for not taking the options that a real person might have considered.

Therefore, I submit that Janeway's worst decision was wearing her hair in that bun.

 

[froot]

Therefore, I submit that Janeway's worst decision was wearing her hair in that bun.

Seconded!

For real, though, I still stand by my claim that she shouldn't have given away that holodeck technology in Killing Game. It was very OOC.

I also was not a fan of her choices in Scorpion, Part I. However, I do think they were true to her character and I wouldn't have expected any differently from her.

I've never had a problem with the array. I think it helped define her character (see Night, Endgame, and her willingness to drive through every stop sign in the DQ ) and, IMO, I think it's something damn near every Starfleet captain would have done. My only beef is that it should have been made crystal clear somehow that a bomb was not a viable option. Actually, was that brought up in The Voyager Conspiracy? I can't remember.

I still get annoyed with her for how she disrespects the Holodoc in YoH Part II. If the CO of a starship can blow off her CMO she really loses any sort of high ground in terms of telling others to comply with said CMO. Then again, that version of Janeway became a moot point.

The ship had a crew of about 7? 6? people at the time of that episode. For better or worse, Janeway really did need to be out working with the others, not taking naps. I think it was respectable that she continued her duties, although she could have stood to be a little more gentle with Doc when turning him down.

Note that really, none of the captains are above reproach. One almost wonders whether the captain who commits the occasional morally ambiguous action ends up being better-regarded than a captain who consistently plays it safe (Esteban and Styles come to mind).

Word to that. If all our favorite space captains did the perfect thing all the time, they'd be damn boring to watch. They shouldn't be bumbling nutbars, of course, but they should be ultimately human.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If she didn't separate him, she'd basically have murdered two crewmen by criminal cowardice.

As for the Array, it was bad writing. Earlier scenes showed that using the Array would've killed people meaning it wasn't an option, but the crew acted like it was perfectly safe. Either it's a safe way home or not, make up your minds writers!

Dude.

Still?

Nothing is completely safe, but in this case people only died from falling over or standing in front sparks flying out of exploding consoles and fuseboxes. there was nothing about the process which was harmful to humanoid biology or caused anything in the ship to completely detonate more so than just falter from unthunk and extraordinary stresses.

If they all "sat down" and braced themselves and the most explody stuff was turned off during transit, they would have been fine.

"Sigh"

 

[Anwar]

Which would've been fine, if they brought that up in the show. As it stands, it made it seem like the Array did it. So we're left with the "Will it work or no?" thing.

 

[john titor]

All of them. I have to say the Tuvix one was the worst, shes always presented as being totally correct when in fact she was an unethical meglomaniac. Its fairly unsettling that she was portrayed in a good light in the trek universe. Then again she was promoted to admiral and as we all know the admirals in star trek are huge shitheads, excluding the klingons.

 

[Anwar]

Not really, I mean Sisko and Kirk did stuff as nasty but no one ever minded then.

 

[DonIago]

Really? Sisko still gets all kind of flak about poisoning the Maquis planet, and that's without taking into account how people tend to grossly exaggerate the scope of his actions ("He committed genocide!!!"). I don't think everyone's entirely sanguine about his actions in ITPM either.

As for Kirk...I'm not as familiar with TOS, and am admittedly unable to come up with an example of him committing any actions that I'd consider morally dubious. Possibly in "A Private Little War"? Granted he only had three seasons and a bunch of movies, versus everyone else's seven (or at least four).

 

[john titor]

Not really, I mean Sisko and Kirk did stuff as nasty but no one ever minded then.

No, you see Sisko reflected on his actions, we weren't shown that he was right all the time, moreover he was in a situation where he had to defend the entire existence of the fed. Kirk was the man, always will be the man and so can never be wrong.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Re: Janeway's worst decisions

Not really, I mean Sisko and Kirk did stuff as nasty but no one ever minded then.

No, you see Sisko reflected on his actions, we weren't shown that he was right all the time, moreover he was in a situation where he had to defend the entire existence of the fed. Kirk was the man, always will be the man and so can never be wrong.

You are joking, right? Kirk The Godkiller totally destroyed the way of life for the aliens in "The Apple" (and many others), he risked his ship to get revenge on a cloud in "Obsession", he forces a world to accept real war again and risk destruction in "A Taste of Armageddon" and letched over Reyna from "Requiem for Methuselah" in a truly disgusting fashion leading to her death.

A true role model.